I Do This I Do That- Chapter 23

XXIII. Mi Mufasa es Su Mufasa

I transcended between dream and reality as the bus jolted and rumbled and dimmed. Wheeler's bony butt was practically on my lap for a moment or two, and I plastered my side to the window, perpetually shoving him over with my knee. I kept dreaming nonsense, about some dragon bathing in what looked like canned ravioli. I'd wake and then find myself mentally searching for the exact spot in the orange and red valley that I left off. I was just sort of perusing around a warm valley, and this dragon was dipping it's mouth in the goo and then spitting the marinara looking sauce all over itself. It never saw me. I was completely alone, I thought to myself in the dream that it might have been hell. If Cait had been with me when I woke up, I'm sure she'd relay some highly inaccurate interpretation of what it all meant. I personally found no significance from any of it, but the vividness was undeniably haunting, as usual.



The outside world began to brighten and it seemed we'd arrived in something urban. It was just after 11 p.m. I'd slept for much longer than I'd thought, which I realized with utter relief. The trip was ending, and we'd arrived in Minneapolis, just a tad behind schedule. After the various stops, less than half the passengers remained on the bus. Hot Cheetos was gone, and the Amish trifecta had also departed. The skinny tough guy and his babe still sat ahead of us, and they yawned and then giggled then kissed in the dark. "I think we're here, babe," he said.



We turned down South 3rd Street and stopped on the corner of 3rd and Chicago. The lights came on and the bus beeped and lowered. "Well folks, almost 8 hours later and it looks like we're back to Chicago," joked the driver over the intercom. Silence ensued, and it seemed that the fat nut in the back had exited the bus while we slept. We retrieved our backpack and left into a sea of parking lots. There were parking lots on every side of us, and low yellow street lights made continuous shadows down the cement blocks.



Few cars passed, and the other riders faded into cabs or cars or shadows. Wheeler and I made no plans for lodging, and we sat on a brick ledge in one of the many parking lots to contemplate our next move. The air was idyllic, and faints of summer warmth moved in a steady breeze calmly moving west. It smelled like flowers and dirt in the lot, and I took notice to the likelihood of the moon actually being full. It appeared to be, but truly full or not, it was certainly brilliant above us regardless.



"Hey, you know where the term 'lunatic' comes from?" said Wheeler, leaning back against his wrists and turning his wide eyes towards the sky.

"No I don't."

"The prefix 'luna' means moon. People are supposedly more crazy when there's a full moon. More murderers, more accidents. Even Aristotle thought so."

"You know the most useless shit."

"Depends on what you consider useless I guess!"

"So what are we supposed to do now?"

"Find a watering hole and stumble around until morning. Then we'll go to this Hackett house first in the morning," he pulled out a scribbley map with a triangle drawn over outspread Minneapolis streets. He pointed to one of the corners.

"Alright," I said.

There was a star on the map about 8 blocks southeast of where the first Hackett house was. "We're here," said Wheeler.

"I feel sort of like a pirate with this map, looking for treasure."

Wheeler concluded that we should head towards the first house, and stop at whatever bars we collided with on the journey.

After 5 blocks towards the first Hackett house, we came to a slightly busy slew of low buildings with cheap looking fluorescent signs and stirs of amplified music inside. The gutters surrounding reeked of sewage and mud, and there wasn't anything or anyone remotely pretty in sight. There was life though, and booze, and we settled with that.

The first bar on the left was called "Hobo Sam's". The crowd was surprisingly young. I knew nothing about the demographics of the area, but I did know how confoundedly ugly it was outside. Usually young people congregate in pretty little places, but there must have been a college nearby, I thought.

Wheeler hung around me like a belt, and it was only by extremely aggressive shoves that I got him to remove his arm or arms from my waist. He went to the bar and squeezed between a very dull looking group. I sat at a tall wooden table on the left side of the room and surveyed the variance, feeling quite tired and greasy. He looked back towards me periodically, with a happy drunk grin on his face, as though we repeatedly shared a discreet moment that words could not necessarily convey. There was no moment though. No connection, and I actually quivered in disgust at the sight of his elongated gazes.

He was wearing a snug navy t-shirt with a picture of Mufasa on it from The Lion King. It read, "Mi Mufasa es Su Mufasa," in white cursive font. Mufasa was the father in the movie. Did the shirt mean, my father is your father? Crazy fucking Wheeler, I thought, as I watched him stand there, all lanky and British looking. Those big buck teeth and high cheek bones were nothing short of laughable. The expression on his face was one that indicated he desired and deserved attention, attention from me no less. However, I could never reciprocate that look he was giving me. No matter what we'd done together or what we were going to do, I would never even remotely care about him on any romantic level. Any sexual encounters we had were merely consequences of apathy, not attraction. What was most palpable to me in that moment, was that I lacked even the smallest amount of remorse for the entire debacle. His feelings were his own problem.

He came back to the table with a pitcher of beer and two quality plastic cups. The beer tasted like apricots, and the plastic was thick, nothing that I could bite through.

"Nice," I said.

"The bartender only had fucking quarters for change. You mind if I go blow them on those machines over there?" he pointed to a little area by the foyer where there was an abundance of kiddie looking machine games. "I think there's a jukebox too."

"Yeah, go."

He reached over and squeezed my hand before he got up, just before I had a sufficient chance to remove it from his range.

The other tables around me were quickly occupied, and I was suddenly filled with an overwhelming feeling of familiarity. I could be in any college bar in any city in the country and find nothing remotely different, aside perhaps from a variation in the nightly specials. The three guys behind me were wearing blue and black and tan, and their names were probably Chad, Chris, and Tom. There were four girls behind them. They were probably talking about relationships or the trivial details of their daily affairs. All of the noise around me struck me in such an exasperatingly daunting way, that I could do nothing more than chug the pitcher to suppress my anxiety. I drank and drank until the apricot beer deflected in burps from my full stomach, back into the noisy air.

Wheeler popped back over to me just as I finished the last drink of the apricot beer.
"I won this in a machine," he said, pulling out a small black box from his pocket. Inside was a fake gaudy diamond ring with a thin faux-silver band.
"I also won an alligator stuffed animal, but some dude bought it from me for $1.25."
"Weird."
"I'm gonna do something now, and you have to go with it. No matter what, just go with it. Okay? Trust me."
"What are you gonna do?"
"Just trust me."

He walked over towards the bar and disappeared in the accumulating crowd.

Some big girl in a table perpendicular from me was leaning too far forward and her shirt was far too short. The blatant sight of the crack of her ass made me almost want to throw up the apricot beer. Also, I'd been extremely malnourished in the past few days, and the impetuous pitcher chug left me feeling unsteady in my chair. Thanks to the beer, time was sort of easier to endure though, which was a feeling I could not deny liking. I wished for a minute I had a napkin to crumble, or a paper straw wrapper to toss over into her crack. I had nothing though, and just cringed flagrantly in her general ass crack direction.

The lights became a tad brighter, and the music stopped playing mid song. It was hours before closing time. Several fat and thirsty college beasts looked towards the bar, bewildered. Others were too drunk or distracted to notice. However, all mouths and eyes halted when suddenly the bartender hopped on the bar. He sharply whistled with two fingers in his mouth, a skill that awed me and commanded the room nearly silent.

"Hey! Everybody. Listen up for a minute!"

A congregated group by the bar parted for an emerging person. It was Wheeler. Goddamn Wheeler. He walked out from the group and moved towards me. He had a look on his face like a man who'd just born a child. He seemed completely meek and utterly amazed. 'What the fuck is he about to do?' I thought. Thankfully I was feeling a bit loaded, and the bright lights in the room were fuzzy enough to keep me calm. I remembered what he said, "No matter what, just go with it." Go with it I would, for the sake of sparring a likely brawl, but I was nervous as hell as he approached me.

The people in the room formed sort of a half-moon crescent around us as he cleared his throat.

"Paigebrook," he said, so loudly that I could almost feel the vibrations of his voice.
"I have loved you since the first time I saw you." Pause. Oh God. Oh God. What the fuck is he doing? I put my hand over my heart, and the other over my mouth, worried I may puke or laugh, and the hand could stop both.

"Every day that I've heard your voice and seen you smile, has made me happier than the day before... You've stood by me through these past 8 years. Through my drug problems, through the cancer... You've given me strength that I never knew I had in me. Sometimes, I just look at you and my whole life just makes sense. You are my best friend, and the most beautiful girl I have ever. ever. seen." The long lustrous pauses were filled with perceptible intensity, and I could see that around the room girls and boys alike were beaming with receptive happiness. A blond girl sitting on a stool wiped a tear from her cheek.

Wheeler took a deep heartfelt breath and got down on one knee. 'Oh God,' I thought. The crowd around us jeered with more enthusiasm than I remember seeing at any baseball game, any track meet or 5k road race... Tough boys with deep voices cheered from the depths of their lungs. Tiny girls 'wooed' with high pitched yelps, and the fire in the room pulsed with genuine intensity and support. Even I felt like crying.

"Paigebrook, Esmerelda.. McGillicuddy. Make me the happiest fucking guy in the world," He pulled out the black box with the ring that he'd won from the quarter machine. "Will you, marry me?" He opened the box. The room sort of held it's breath for just a moment, and I found myself nodding uncontrollably, 'yes', I moved my hand away from my nearly laughing mouth and said, "Yes, Yes, Yes!" Every one went bizerk; clapping and jumping and cheering wildly. I got up from my chair and Wheeler picked me up in one brisk motion, spinning me around in an eloquent loop.

I heard joyful crying from the table of boring broads I'd noted earlier. There was the sound of champagne popping, and before I knew it, I kissed him, in the heat of the brilliantly contrived moment. We had parted The Red Sea. We had turned water into wine, and everyone in the room wanted a piece of our miraculous asses. True love had been witnessed, at least in the perception of these dopey Minnesotans.

I couldn't believe how badly every one wanted to be apart of it, to believe it, and to support it with every type of alcoholic salutation I'd ever consumed. It was like my goddamn twenty-first birthday, on steroids. Never had I been treated better in my life. Before we knew it, we were Hobo Sam royalty. Bottles of champagne were opened in our honor. We took shot after shot after shot. We were holding hands and Eskimo kissing our way into being given the bar itself.

We were becoming quite good at being engaged. Our story became bigger and more concrete as the night went on.

"So, why'd you pick Hobo Sam's?" asked a relatively cute brunette, who didn't buy us a drink but came over to our celebrity stools at the bar. It was a reasonable question.
"This has been our place for the past five years," said Wheeler.
"Yeah that's right, we come here all the time," I said.
The bar was a dark dusty square with old looking pool tables and bathrooms that reeked of shit and murder.
A tall gump in a backwards grey hat, with borderline cross-eyes overheard our response and chimed in. "You know, I've seen you guys in here so many times. You always look so happy and so in love. Makes me want to get a girlfriend, man," he patted Wheeler on the back.
"Nothing beats love," said Wheeler.
"Wow. That's just great. I'm so happy for you guys!" said the brunette. She then ordered us two shots.
"Five years? How fucking old do I look?" I whispered in Wheeler's ear. He laughed and kissed me on the cheek. "Love you too, honey!" he said.

A short guy with dark hair walked over to us. He looked and smelled like he'd just popped out of the tanning bed, and he held out his hand towards me with enthusiasm. "Congrats guys. Really. That was incredible. I work for Minneapolisbars.com, and I actually caught the entire thing on my iPhone. I'm gonna put it up on the website tomorrow if it's cool with you both."
"Oh yeah, absolutely. I can't wait to see it!"
"I've never seen anything like that. It was seriously, really amazing. I've seen you guys in here before, and I gotta tell you, I've noticed how happy you are together."
"Hear that dear? How nice," I said. I smiled drunkenly at Wheeler. I felt like an aspiring actress with my first big break.
"Hey and if you guys need anything, like a promo for your wedding, promo for your bachelor parties, seriously let me know. I also video tape, too," he said. He handed us his card. It had his face on the front of it.
"Also I'm gonna give you guys this V.I.P promo book. There are drink tickets in there, coupons for restaurants and hotels, party discounts, limo discounts.. lots of good stuff," he handed it to Wheeler.
"Excellent man. We really appreciate it," said Wheeler. He kissed my forehead.

The plastic ring was entirely too big for my ring finger, and it slid around in circles and dropped down onto the ground from time to time. A boy glanced skeptically while Wheeler retrieved it. Wheeler picked up the ring and leaned into the boy, "It's my mom's engagement ring man. I love the woman, but she's bigger than a house," he said. The boy smiled and moved in towards the bar.

"Bartender! Two shots!" he said.

I Do This I Do That- Chapter 22

XXII. Utopia

I rested my head on the thick warm glass as the bus wielded through traffic intermittently. As we accelerated and switched lanes, there seemed to be a slight delay of movement from the bottom half to the top half of the bus, and the sensation made me somewhat woozy. It was such a heavy thing, with all of the people and bags and wheels, and I thought about how common it would be for us to just topple over into the medium, or drift into collision with some unassuming truck or tree. For as statistically dangerous driving is, becoming a bus driver should be a difficult process, and obtaining an operator's licence should really be regarded as a prestigious achievement.

I could hear Pancho Villa telling a man sitting behind him about the various public places in Chicago that used to permit inconspicuous drug use.

"It was before all the goddamn socialists took over. Remember that? I remember when the frats in Lincoln Park used to sell speed at the door instead of plastic cups. Me? No I never went. I ran around with a group that went to the frat houses though," he said. "All the goddamn democrats got up and took over though. Now we can't even smoke a goddamn cigarette fifty feet from a building. You don't think ther'll be another prohibition? There sure as hell will be, if Obama has anything to do with it. Goddamn socialist. They're taxing soda that isn't diet, you know that? Vice laws. I used to be able to smoke weed right out in the open. Right in the middle of the goddamn park. Now I can't even smoke a cigarette outside." He coughed from the depth of his lungs and glanced periodically in the rear view mirror at the babe sitting behind the man he spoke with. The man wore a khaki brimmed hat and leaned towards the driver with his right arm perched up against the back of his seat. "I hear ya," he said, "Tell me about it. No shit. I hear ya."

In my ideal Utopian society, becoming a bus driver or a cabbie would be one of the most prestigious endeavors. I'm sure if Sir Thomas More was alive and created a modern revision of his book, Utopia, he'd likely agree with this priority. The bus driver would be the economical equivalent of the doctor or the politician. Even private citizens would undergo grueling tests to obtain a driver's license, which would have to be renewed every five years or so. Car accidents would then be as socially shocking as plane crashes.

More's Utopia valued agriculture and simplicity, which mine would also uphold, but I would add that the public transporter is one of the most socially undermined positions. Also, More's world implemented slavery, which is pretty fucked up. My Utopia would not have slavery, or name tags, or romantic comedies starring Matthew McConaughey, or the "Twilight" series, or acrylic nails, or Twitter, or Miley Cyrus, or Nicholas Sparks, or Oprah. Most importantly, my Utopia would not allow small talk of any kind.

Art would be valued, college would be free, there would be no vice laws, and dogs would be strictly prohibited from wearing clothing. There would be tax incentives for those who didn't obstruct justice, who promoted goodness, who befriended their neighbors, and for those who displayed general perspective and humility. Of course the reality of the world is not close to my ideal, and if the babe's chicken leg was remotely visible to the boisterous driver, the MegaBus and all of the ugly people inside would probably crash into opposing traffic.

Wheeler was listening to the driver and laughed under his breath after certain comments. He turned towards me.

"You know," he said, "every time I've ridden on a coach bus in the last couple of years I think about that Canadian wack who decapitated the dude sitting next to him."
"I didn't hear about that."
"Oh yeah. It was on a Greyhound. This normal looking guy just started stabbing the passenger next to him in the middle of the trip. Like 50 or 60 times or something. Then he decapitated him, and ran up and down the aisle eating the dude's flesh. It was one of the most fucked up things I'd ever heard about."
"That's horrible."
"Isn't it? How can people be that fucked up? And people are supposedly made in God's image. What about that guy, huh?"
He looked up and down the aisle. "It makes you wonder, right? Like everybody looks so normal, but you never know what's really going on inside. Hot Cheetos over there might be a real psycho and we'd never know by looking at her. Or the Amish dude. Maybe he's leaving the city because he was just on some serial killing spree!"
"I doubt that," I said.
"There are so many mysteries in the world, in the universe. You know? Aliens, the Bermuda Triangle, God... I think we're the biggest mystery of all though. Fucking people. Who knows why people do what they do.We'll never know either."
"I don't think it's that mysterious. I think people are just selfish. That guy on the Greyhound just wanted to do that."
"Yeah you also said you pride yourself with not knowing things." He smiled and the western sun hit his face, making his teeth look bigger and more bucked than usual.
"I still have an opinion. It's probably wrong, but I still have one."

We stopped at a McDonald's about 40 minutes north of Janesville, Wisconsin.
The driver got on the intercom, "Okay folks, we'll be here for 20 minutes. 20 minutes. If you're not on here in 20 minutes, we're leavin' without you. And if anyone wants to buy me a big mac, no mustard please."

The guy in the back with the deep laugh lost control, and every body's heads turned towards him.
"With that laugh and a few more stops at McDonald's, he's gonna have a heart attack," said Wheeler.

I stayed on the bus while Wheeler went inside to get us food. I buried my head in my lap while the chicks walked past. After the bus refilled, Wheeler was the last to return. He didn't have a McDonald's bag, but instead he carried two cucumbers and a plastic knife.

"I went across the street to the dairy store," he said, "This is better than nasty burgers and greasy fries."

Everyone around us made loud noises with their red and white paper bags, and the smell of fried meat and pickles doused in mustard lingered between the royal blue rows. Wheeler struggled to peel the cucumbers with the bending knife. He took the peeled scraps and rubbed them all over his face.

"It's good for you," he said, handing me a piece of green skin. I rubbed it on my face then held the used scrap in my hand.
"That does feel nice," I said.
When he was finished he ate the pieces he'd used on his greasy face.
"Are you gonna eat that?" he pointed to the one I'd rubbed on mine.
"That's really gross." He took it out of my hand and ate it.
"You're so much like Cait, and you don't even know it."
"Cait Hackett? Or Cait Finn? We don't even know what she's like," he said.

It was getting dark outside and the babe was now sitting on the skinny tough guy's lap. The bus smelled like burger fart, and Wheeler revealed yet another pint of whiskey from his other sock. Pancho Villa watched the babe deviously in the rear view mirror, and I kept imagining the MegaBus veering off into a perilous catastrophe because of it.

A vision of scarce trees blended into a green line as we moved forward, and I couldn't help but notice how plain it all was. Every mile looked the same as the last. I tried to percieve the dusty gravel road and the patchy green fields beside it as beautiful or interesting, but I could not lie to my own instincts. It was all ugly, every single mile. The sunset was brilliant though, as it arguably always is. No matter the place or weather, the setting sun is always beautiful. As long as there is a sun, there will always be two distinctly beautiful moments in every single day; the sunrise and the sunset. The light began to hide beneath the ugly green fields, and I closed the window shade to block the intensity.

"Is it okay if I put my head on your lap?" said Wheeler.
"No, no, it's not at all okay actually."

Instead, he curled himself into a ball with his back toward me. I tried to sleep but couldn't distract my brain from the monotony of M*A*S*H, and the reoccurring vision in my head of toppling over into a ditch. My Utopian bus driver wouldn't resemble Pancho Villa at all, I thought, but would be someone cool and distinguished looking, like Anderson Cooper or Gregory Peck. Yes. Gregory Peck, in fact. Gregory Peck would be the absolute ideal representation of my Utopian bus driver, I thought...

I Do This I Do That- Chapter 21

XXI. "You're Ignorant! You're Ignorant!"

The driver descended from the MegaBus door and stood in the gutter next to the accumulating line. He smoked a cigarette and periodically pulled his sagging gray slacks back on top of the slope of his protruding waist. His dark eyes looked like dirty pebbles, heavy and small. He had a thick Pancho Villa mustache that was almost comically primped, turning down at both sides. He watched the shallow ducks daintily heave their bags into the storage compartment below the bus. People in line looked at him like he ought to help. He spat in response.

Wheeler and I held back while the bus filled, and I peeked between the bobbing heads and made a note of where precisely the chickadees had sat. They were third or fourth row up from the rear.

The front half of the bus was still scarcely sat, and from behind the line I eyed an empty spot on the right side close to the front. I positioned Wheeler ahead of me to ensure I was adequately hidden.


"You don't want them to see you? Just come here," said Wheeler, putting his arm around my neck like I was about to be the victim of a noogie. He quickly pulled his t-shirt over my head. His abdomen was damp and salty against my face and I struggled to walk down the aisle without hitting what felt like chairs, or arms, or bags. Wheeler laughed gaily and popped me out into an empty seat.

"You're ridiculous. And disgusting," I said.

"That was just as obvious as what you were doing, hiding behind me like a little kid. Who the fuck cares if you know those girls?"

"I can't explain it."

He put his backpack up above the seat and sat down next to me. He scratched his nails on the chair by his lap, tracing the multicolored laser-like dashes seamed into the thick royal blue fabric. M*A*S*H was playing on the small TV in front of us, and the familiar theme song competed with the hushed sounds of slow classic rock coming from the driver's personal radio.


Three Amish people settled in a few seats behind us, and I wondered how fascinated they were or how shameful they felt over all the exposed knees everywhere on the bus. I imagine that to Amish people, the bluntness of all the exposed knees and shoulder blades would be the equivalent of me walking onto a bus with butts and boobs abounding, with no apologies or complaints.

I heard a program on NPR about an Amish boy who took a spiritual sabbatical on his 18th birthday. He left his community for 6 months, and at the end of the sabbatical he could either choose to return to the Amish way of life, or dissent into mainstream culture forever. He ended up getting addicted to meth.


These three looked meth free, and they were only an arms reach away, which excited me. I could faintly hear the sound of their conversation. Their possible topics for discussion filled me with curiosity. I figured they may banter over homemade furniture, or jam, or cornfields, ears of corn, religious paraphernalia, sin, buttons, maybe... hats. If I was raised Amish, the lure of meth (or anything shiny or sharp really) would likely be my demise too.


Everyone else around was boring and ugly. Across from us, an overweight black girl was talking on the phone with one hand and eating flaming hot Cheetos with the other. She had long fake pink nails with detailed white designs etched on them. She had a backpack sitting on the seat next to her, even though the bus was nearly full.

I remember one time when Cait and I went for a walk through Lincoln Park, we happened to be slightly drunk and we walked straight through a kid's soccer game. It was clearly a huge interruption, and an angry dad ran after us, screaming, "You're ignorant! You're ignorant!" That's all he said. I suppose he was right, but at the time the complaint lacked so much specificity to me. For some reason the vision of this big girl eating hot Cheetos and not giving a damn about taking up two seats made me think of that screaming dad.

There was an old woman standing in front of the big girl who had a look on her face like she knew she was old and everyone else should care. She waited for someone to help her put her bag into the upper storage compartment. The big girl didn't get up. I nudged Wheeler and he noisily got up and made a big fuss over her. He called her sweetheart. I thought for a moment that he may slap her ass, but thankfully he just faked the motion when she wasn't looking.

I looked back to see the Amish people's reactions but they were stone cold serious. I could imagine the Amish man thinking about corn or buttons to distract himself from the mainstream buffoonery.

Wheeler sat back down and tried but failed to put his arm around my shoulder. I pushed him off of me like a reflex. The bus was already running 30 minutes behind schedule, but we remained outside of Union Station. The doors were still open and the driver still stood on the curb, smoking and grinning beneath that Pancho Villa.

A couple walked on, a skinny looking tough guy, and a sort of pretty, short girl with blond hair and pale chicken legs. "Right here babe," said the skinny boy. His voice was out of context, full and deep, like someone important and strong. He was damn skinny though. They both were. She handed him her bag and went into the window seat. "You want this babe?" He pulled out a magazine from the bag pouch.

"Hopefully this 'babe' shit doesn't go on for seven whole hours," I said to Wheeler. Again I imagined that soccer dad, screaming and running after us, "You're ignorant! You're ignorant!"

The tough kid's chest was sort of puffed out, and he took a snarled glance around the bus before sitting down next to his babe.

"You wanna get fucked up, 'babe'?" Wheeler pulled out a pint of Jack from his sock.
"Sure, why not."

We turned towards each other and took turns drinking from the small bottle.
"Don't worry. I have reinforcements too," he said.

The driver got on the bus and closed the door. He situated himself in the seat and got on the intercom, "Afternoon folks. Thanks for choosing MegaBus. We're a bit behind schedule today, but we'll still be making stops for breaks and dinner. We'll be getting to our final destination, Minneapolis, about an hour later than planned. But don't worry, we'll leave the light on for ya." He looked into the rear view mirror and winked, as though he anticipated some laughter. However it wasn't funny, not even a little bit. Some big nut in the back killed the silence and laughed like he may explode or die from hilarity.

I hit my head lightly against the window.

Wheeler nudged my arm with his elbow. "Hey, if I get drunk enough, will you give me 10 dollars to grope hot Cheetos over there?"

"You're Ignorant."

I Do This I Do That- Chapter 20

XX. Fucking Small Talk

Downtown the late afternoon sun ricocheted from building to building and the rays felt most concentrated on the top of my head and the bottom of my feet. We stood in the middle of the line to board the bus, behind two girls I recognized as my former college peers. Both were average height, but taller than me. One had mousy blond hair that blew wildly in the southbound wind. The other was brunette and chunky. Her denim shorts pinched the back of her legs, making a fold.

I'd met them, more or less, freshman year. I'd passed them on campus and in between classes. We'd waved to each other at bars. I began to sweat at the idea of engaging in small talk of any kind. I tried to hide behind Wheeler. Please don't look at me, please don't look at me, I thought to myself over and over and over again.

"Wheeler," I whispered, crouched down behind him in the line. "I know them," I pointed. "Please don't say my name."

"I wouldn't know what to call you even if I wanted to," he said, failing to adjust his tone for discretion.

They laughed to each other like little birds, and I imagined their conversation was about some bullshit social scenarios, some crappy details about their vacuous activities, or the stupid phony entanglements they considered relationships. This was going to be a long ride of hiding behind my seat. Yuck, I thought. I couldn't fathom the thought of the simple banter I'd have to partake in if they recognized me to my face. The whole garrulous production, the dialogue, the smiling. It was more precarious to me than the likely trauma of several physical endeavors. I almost thought of retreating from the entire mission just to overt chatting with these shallow ducks.

My elaborate distaste for common social interaction was intrinsically deeper than me just feeling dim for not having normal adult preoccupations to discuss. It was the idea of being identified that I hated. I could travel anywhere new, comfortably, as long as I didn't already own a formed persona. The moment someone recognized me, I became afraid of encountering them ever again. The more people who knew me or knew of me, the worse my fear became.

When I met Cait, she became an armor. I could go anywhere if she was there. She protected me. Her fearlessness was captivating, and it radiated off of her like light from a lamp. With Cait, not only was I not afraid of discussing the weather or my plans for winter break as usual, but I just knew the small conversation that I detested could never take place. She was too outlandish. She was unapproachable and impervious to the phony pretences the dialogue required. Wheeler served no similar function, and I regarded his presence more as a gaudy anchor or an un-coverable blemish than something remotely empowering.

I remember during the second semester of my freshman year in college, my immense hatred for small talk was severely affecting my grades. I'd lost points in my classes for truant attendance, a policy I always thought was complete bull shit, but could not successfully avoid. Some days I spent hours fighting with myself at the door to my building, debating on which route to class was least clustered. I wore headphones and hid the unattached cord in my pocket. What made matters worse was the size of my building. I lived in a twenty story dorm on the eighteenth floor, but could hardly force myself to take the elevator instead of the stairs.

If I was remotely tardy, I wouldn't attend class at all, specifically to avoid being looked at. I could only imagine the peril of that interruption...bumbling through desk rows and loudly retrieving my books. The professor would roll his eyes. The students would watch me move across the room. How awful! How embarrassing. I could not bear it. When I told my academic advisor about my social condition (after two missed appointments), she suggested I see a counselor.

The grad student counselor was a pretty Italian girl with olive skin and long, carefully groomed hair. She was polite, but a tad inarticulate and flushed. She spoke softly, and struggled a great deal with spouts of dry mouth between words. She had an ugly wound on her lip, caked in concealer and hid slightly by a few hanging curls of her hair. Was it a disease? Was it a blemish? Was it a cut from some domestic dispute? Perhaps it was herpes. I couldn't stop staring at it. I kept picturing her heading to the bar right after our session, or being the center of dozens of skanky poses on Facebook. She probably picked psychology as a major on a whim. She probably went to grad school because she wasn't quite sure what to do with her frivolous undergraduate degree. She probably had no fucking clue what she was going to do or who she was going to be, like everyone else I knew. She was only a few years older than I was, after all.

She flipped through a white binder full of paper. The room was like a closet with two modern desk chairs facing each other and a small side table against the wall. The window faced towards the shoreline of Lake Michigan, where beauty was inescapable, where nothing too warm or too cold could ever be imperfect, and no shade of day looked remotely dull. I watched the waves beat against the rocks while she cleared her throat and neatly sorted out her things. The water moved like music; low and subtle towards the lake and crashing unpredictably towards the shore. While she was busy setting up a tape recorder, I kept thinking about the notes and the octave jumps the water would create if it moved on scales and not sand. She tested the recorder dumbly.

"This is just a requirement from the department. Is it okay with you if I record this?"
"Sure," I said, too nervous and distracted to think it over.

She too would likely become a contribution to this progressing condition of mine, I thought. Look at that thing. That thing on her lip. I pictured myself seeing her and her lip thing in public. I'd sweat, ignore her, run away...At the very least I'd walk past her at a very fast pace. Consequently we only had 3 sessions total, even though I was recommended to see her for the remainder of the semester. I was at least a good sport for the first one, which was something.

She asked me simple questions. I nervously answered, explaining my hatred for small talk as logically as I could. I kept hearing my own voice and feeling completely crazy. The permeation of it all was reiterated with the circulating recorder. The tape moved around and around and around in the machine.

"So. You just...don't like small talk? To...anyone? You... don't like people seeing you?"
"Um yeah, not exactly. But, yeah."
"Hmmm," she said.
"Have you heard of something like this before?"
"Well...I've read about something...similar."

I hated that. This girl didn't know a goddamn thing. What was wrong with her? Not her necessarily, but with this institution? She has the professional standards to be my counselor? I could have looked up a better response on Wikipedia.

The second session went worse. She came in, set up the recorder, sifted through the binder like she'd done before, but this time she pulled out a handful of literature for me to look over.
"I got these for you. I think they may be a big help," she said.

In bold black font on a neatly folder pamphlet were the words: "12 Tips For Making Small Talk."
"Now before you say anything, I'd really just like you to read it. This may be a huge help to you. I really think so."

As crazy as I believed I may have been in session one, there was nothing crazier to me than this pamphlet. The tips were not only irrelevant, but the fact that she was so completely off base was infuriating.

'Be the first to say hello.
Think of three questions to ask before any conversation.
Listen.
Stay focused.
Use names frequently.
Have interesting contributions.
Use confident body language.
Maintain eye contact.
Offer a business card, a favor, or a cold beverage.
Draw from current events and popular culture to break the ice.
Have a compliment ready to go.
Be prepared to make a courteous exit.'

I couldn't decide if I should scream furiously, or laugh hysterically. All I could do was muster the word, "Fuck."

"I know. It seems like a challenge, but a lot of introverted people get over their social fears. I think you should take it all with you, read it, and practice it in the mirror. When you wake up in the morning, practice saying 'hello'. Smile at yourself. Compliment yourself. Work with your body language. Then try it on a roommate or a professor. It will take time, but I think you have it in you. I believe in you."

I left, with little else exchanged between us.

The third and final session was...almost unmentionable. I walked in. I sat down. She spoke to me.
"Nice to see you. Have you practiced your small talk in the mirror since last week?"
I said nothing.
"Laura?"
No response.
She cleared her throat a few more times. After a few minutes...
"Are you ready to talk?"
I remained completely silent for the duration of the session. I watched the waves crash against the rocks. I pondered over the blemish on her lip. I coughed, twice. I could hear the deft sound of the tape turning in the recorder.

Thankfully my academic advisor never followed through with her about the sessions, and consequently my fear and hatred for small talk actually became worse. I couldn't imagine the type of person who would honestly appreciate the 12 tips I'd learned from the packet. Fucking weirdos. I continued to skip class, and spent probably the accumulation of one month's time over-walking my routes.

In fact, in retrospect I could argue that any and all gaps in my education, aside from the consequently low standards of my reputable institution, could all be attributed to small talk...it's likelihood- balancing sickly on the lips of my recognizable peers...it's standards- typed up in neatly folded packets...the weather and celebrity gossip, the plans and routines, the majors and minors and part-time jobs, the bars and the drunks and the Saturday parties, the articles and elections, the wind, the fucking wind, the traffic and the train, the traffic lights and cross walks and lack of cross walks, the pieces of paper and pens and sweaters and shirts and ties and busses and carpets and tiles and windows and doors and feet, the beer brands and wine tastes and the landscapes and the tests and tests and tests, the garrulous, the deplorable, the pending, fucking small talk.

I Do This I Do That- Chapter 19

XIX. Money In The Bank

We resolved between the hours of 2 and 4 a.m that discovering the true identity of Cait Finn superseded our immediate need for sleep and the mesmerizing lure of late night infomercials. Like intoxicated explorers we staggered gallantly to the foot of her door. Her bedroom- the nucleus to all that was Cait. Wheeler dramatically kicked it open and streams of aroma crept out of the breathless room. Sweet candy and cigarettes, sweat, burnt embers and ash, sex and damp sheets; all footprints of Cait's perversity. We stepped into the world of madness.

Every space from the drawers to the shelves inhabited random accumulations and grotesquely selected artifacts. In fear of encountering nudity and beyond, I'd rarely ventured into this world without the native herself. There we were, unrestrained by sobriety or integrity, sifting through her definitive junk.

Post cards upon post cards, other peoples' mail, costume accessories, water balloons, batteries of every size, razor blades, containers of apple sauce, fliers for events gone and passed by 5 years, sex toys and calendars with meaty drag queens inside, silver spoons, neckties, and a jar of dead butterflies... Each item was likely obtained through some nihilistic predicament which she'd craftily exploit or deny.

Photographs were scarce. I knew she didn't own a camera, as she told me once that "cameras were an economic luxury that made vanity portable and insecure people jealous." The photos we did find were of indiscernible value to our quest. One was of three young boys in overalls, sitting on a stoop. Another was a woman in high waisted jeans standing next to a litter of kittens. On the back it said "Hacketts: 1992." Wheeler put it in the 'possible evidence' pile on the floor.

I fell over, physically depleted in the mess. Wheeler however kept digging with vigor, destroying the meticulous chaos of the room and violently trudging through Cait's world like snow.
Flinging himself from the inner corner of the closet, he screamed, "Alas!"
I twitched.
"Wake up," he said, "I found something." He shook my foot.
"I'm resting my eyes."
"Seriously, look."
I opened my left eye and Wheeler held a crayon drawing of what appeared to be a girl on a unicorn, stomping on several cats, a man, a woman, and 3 little stick figure boys. It said "My Family: The Hacketts," in young cursive writing.
"Money in the bank," I said, half asleep. Behind my closed eyes images were already intruding my subconscious and vying for my sole attention. There was a soft wind. There was my parents backyard before me. There were worms everywhere, making the ground a vision of motion. I leapt, and Wheeler became a pigment thousands of miles away.

Hours later he crept back in. He spoke boisterously. The high pitched ring tone of his cell phone setting off in intervals like an alarm clock on snooze shattered the pattern of my dream state escape. Visions of my wormy backyard and the sensation of cool breeze on my watered eyes dissipated to black and left me once again aware of reality. I'd considered falling asleep in my bed a serious accomplishment, which usually tended to be far less likely than the odds of me sleeping on the floor. Wheeler had put a blanket over me, which was notably nice. I found him in the living room.

"What exactly are you doing?" He was sitting in the middle of the floor with my laptop in front of him amidst piles of loose leaf scraps, doodled with what appeared to be nonsense.
"Researching! Discovering!" He'd put on a snug red t-shirt of mine and was fervently typing then writing then typing. He'd constructed "Hackett Graphs" on large sheets of paper that were taped to cookie sheets and rested on the couch. The graphs had listings of hundreds of cities in Minnesota, dozens were crossed out and several segmented to sub categorized lists of names and numbers. It was 3 p.m and he'd clearly vested hours into the operation and hours of research awaited.

It was incredible to me that the accessibility of the Internet had trumped skill, privacy, and profession. Wheeler had made this project his occupation of the moment. He was determined to discover Cait, or at least the identity she'd abandoned. But then what?
"Suppose you find her parents, Wheeler. What then?"
"Aren't you curious? She's gone. Maybe if we know where she's been we can find out where she's at."
It wasn't quite logical, but it did make sense in my heart. She'd always been elusive, but a part of me had been so certain that I'd stepped into her world in some way. I alone had climbed over her wall and nestled myself into her madness. I'd become apart of her, I thought. I'd defended her. I'd loved her.

I made Wheeler a pot of coffee and we searched on. We told every Hackett we called that their daughter, Cait, was the recipient of some impromptu prize money or the chosen candidate to be on an upcoming game show. Wheeler was extremely creative with it. He told Nan Hackett in Shakopee, Minnesota that her daughter, Caitlin Hackett, had recently recovered the missing dog of a prestigious Chicago entrepreneur and was entitled to a hefty reward. "Can you verify your daughter's permanent mailing address?" He'd ask at the conclusion of whatever concoction he spat. Sometimes the call recipients hung up immediately. A few times it was evident that they were manipulating the moment to receive our fake prize. Those instances were relatively clear to us though. The calls upon calls upon calls became more than just our 'project'. It was a game. It was a mission. It was an art.

By dusk the Hackett Graphs had spread into the size of a living room rug. The idea that the family was unlisted, or simply unreal was reserved in a far corner of my brain, buried beneath the hundreds and hundreds of calls we'd made and voices we'd heard. This quest had taken on a life of it's own, and regardless of success or accuracy, we were going to narrow it down to three Hackett's, visit them, and hopefully answer the questions we devised.

The three Hackett families we narrowed it all down to were within a 50 mile radius of Metropolitan Minneapolis. In 48 hours, we expended five boxes of cereal, four packs of cigarettes, three Sharpe markers, and several posters and sheets of paper for diagramming. The lack of sleep and sunlight had created somewhat of a traumatic effect on Wheeler and I, and the godforsaken circumstances of our confinement and mental states had fused us together. I'd read about it in Psychology...people who formed some sort of romantic union after experiencing a traumatic event together, like a plane crash or a car accident. There we were, a fucking case study of that deplorable psychological accident. My repulsion for Wheeler did not necessarily waver, but between temporary insanity and apathy, our relationship was so.

We mapped out our final Hackett Graph and planned to leave the following night. Wheeler had volunteered to pay for our MegaBus tickets, which I did not contest. Not only did I oblige due to my definitive poverty, but also because I'd harbored a bit of blame towards Wheeler for this entire predicament. I couldn't necessarily afford to miss my nannying shifts, which were Thursday to Saturday that particular week, but the mission came first, I'd decided. I texted Mrs. Lesnik and told her I couldn't make it. They had others. She'd replace me. She texted me back. "That's fine. See you next week."

I'd learned a few more details about my regrettable new partner, most of which was entirely unsought. He described himself as an entrepreneur, making three quarters of his modest income as a bike taxi driver, and the rest as a considerably unsuccessful drug dealer. Regardless of the source of Wheeler's menial economic status, the tickets were purchased and the mission ensued.
He'd become sort of like a stubborn zit or a noticeable skin discoloration. He was something unplanned and unattractive, but nonetheless apart of me.

We fell asleep on my bed together after the planning subsided. I curled into the wall with my knees to my chest like an infant, and Wheeler shifted behind me, using my hip as an armrest. At one point in the night I woke from a dream sensation of falling. My knees buckled and I twisted over in a convulsive spasm. Wheeler fell off the bed and landed on the floor. "Fuck!" he screamed. He made a sullen whimpering sound before retiring back into his breathy sleep.

In the morning he made coffee and toast that was so burnt it was almost unbutterable. The bathroom door was closed and I half expected Cait to emerge from the small room, groggy and naked or boisterously drunk. It was just Wheeler though, wearing a pair of my grey sweatpants and a t-shirt he'd likely retrieved from the fortress of Cait. I sat at the kitchen table and took the crust off of the burnt toast. It was now cold and crumbled like ash in a mess on the plate.

"You're beautiful," he said. He kissed my forehead.
"Okay," I said. I ate the lousy crust and coughed out crumbs.

I Do This I Do That- Chapter 18

XVIII. I Know Couch, I Miss Her Too.

Wheeler took off his shirt and tied it tight around his head with the sleeves. He looked pale and gaunt in the nearly night light, and his body odor was unleashed like a radiating monster from his naked upper half. A palpable orb formed around his essence and penetrated me grossly. He sniffed and made a face like he knew it was bad. He walked loosely. His eyes seemed vexed and his mouth grinned tenaciously. It was clear by his apprehension of every horn honk, every shoe galloping by, and the train rattling all else stupid- that he had now applied his superb listening skills to the atonement of our day's mission.

The emos' backyard was trashed with red cups and up heaved chairs. A pair of denim shorts sat discarded on the stoop, and the kiddie pool that Steve had filled for the Flag Day barbecue was now nearly drained, except for a shallow pool of dirty water where a small dead bird was floating. "Sad," said Wheeler, looking down at the bird.

I knocked a few times on the screen door and no one answered. I peeked in the lifeless window and the unlit room looked empty. "Hey!" yelled Wheeler, banging on the door, "Anybody home?" There was a cough. A door slammed. Footsteps approached. Some unlocking of several locks, and the door flung open. Steve was in small white briefs and no shirt. He looked sleepy or drunk and I wanted him to say something classic like an actor in a 1930's gangster film. Like, "Say, what's the big idea!" Instead he gargled out a half yawn half yell, and fervently itched his balls for approximately 15 seconds.

"Laura? Shit. What's up?" I could see Wheeler in my peripheral view; thoughtful and confused. He'd never heard my real name. I gave him a remorseful glance and we all walked inside. Everything was creaky and old and unpolished. I sat at the table, which was etched and carved like the inside of a dirty bathroom stall. There were dicks and boobs, the word 'POOP' in capital letters, some dialogue of nonsense, erratic numbers, a sorry scene of a house and some stick figures.. Next to the numbers, '12 24 4003 11' was the question, "Who threw up in the freezer?" It was a distracting display of art and disgust. Wheeler studied it excitedly. Steve propped himself onto the counter, legs open. He spanked his belly a few times and yawned one final tired belt.

"Steve, this is Wheeler. Wheeler, Steve."
"My man," said Wheeler, saluting him.
He nodded back nicely.

We ritualistically lit our cigarettes and chatted briefly about Cait, skipping right to the part of her being missing and passing over the details of Beatrice and Wiley, of Whim Day and the abandoned van.

"You haven't seen her Steve, have you?" I asked.
"No. No I haven't. My roommate wants to kick her ass though. She shit in his bed, you know that?"
"I doubt that she did," I lied.
"Oh she did in fact. It was fucking disgusting. What kind of girl does that?"
Wheeler burst into a loud laugh.

We'd planned on only stopping by, but Steve went on an accommodating rampage, rummaging through the cabinets and refrigerator drawers for spirits and snacks. He offered us baby dill pickles out of the jar and a bottle of Spumante to share. Wheeler ate the pickles with his bare hands and slurped the pickle juice afterwards, as though it was milk in an empty cereal bowl. Steve didn't have any glassware to speak of so we drank from the bottle and passed it between us. The conversation was dull and erratic, until Steve found a bottle of gin hiding in the back of the pantry. Wheeler took it in shots and the juniper berries coughed out from his loud breathy tangents about losing Cait. Eventually his tangent turned into a libidinous description of their sexual encounter in the lake. Steve interrupted.
"Dude. I banged her too," He said.

I interjected the conversation for an exit. I was hankering to leave, in case Cait had gone home. I was now drunk and bored and vacuous feeling.
"Can I borrow five dollars?" I stood up towards the door.
Steve left and came back with dollars and quarters and nickels and dimes.
"I think it's about five," he said.
I thanked him and left, walking fast back into the crisp air and garbage smelling alley. The door slammed a few seconds later and Wheeler shuffled to catch me.
"I'm coming with you," he said.
"No, you're not!"
"I am. We're in this together." He put his hand on my back. I could smell the juniper and pickle concoction on his breath, and the b.o on his shirt-hat and chest. His fingers were sweaty and they felt small and sharp like hot needles. I leaned over and threw up on the pavement. The puke tasted bubbly on my throat from the Spumante. Wheeler withdrew his sickly touch, and I felt better, overall.

Inside the apartment was dark and arid, like the entries of a strangled corpse. The faucet in the bathroom dripped and echoed towards us, emphatically noting how strange the Cait-less world was. I felt like holding myself, in the same way I felt like holding myself the day my grandmother died. My apartment carried the same morbid lifelessness that I remembered sensing inside her house.

The day after they moved her soulless body from beneath the crocheted afghan on her bed, I went with my mom to collect important things. It was as though the whole house had reacted physically to her passing. We walked inside the foyer and the quiet floor creaked lowly under our feet. The window glass looked darker, the creme walls looked dirtier, the chairs and end tables looked uncharacteristically empty. In her bedroom the white and navy afghan was folded perfectly on top of her pillow. There was still a water glass on her bed stand with a red lipstick mark on the rim. I picked up the glass and held it close to my eyes. She'd breathed into it. She'd drank the water inside the kissed glass. The same smiling mouth that caught me as mesmerizing and wise was imprinted in front me like a relic from a tomb. I poured the rest of the water on my face, expecting to feel her in some way. I did, and I shook, and I sat on the floor and held my torso with my arms, pathetic and lame.

My mother attended me with comfort, as she was opportunistically benevolent and kind. She patted my back and did not discourage me from blowing my nose into her clean ironed blouse. It was a politeness not practiced, that she genuinely obtained from the pureness of heart genes of her mother, my grandmother, whose unfinished glass of water dripped down my teary face. The empathy gene had lamentably skipped me, like baldness or big breasts, cancer or an un-tamable spirit. I'd created outward reactions for tragic or miraculous events that I'd suspected were normal or obvious, but typically felt very little. This one instance with the lipstick stained glass was possibly the only genuinely emotional moment in my whole span of existence. It was painful I remember, and it happened to be real.

It was easy to fake most things, as my conjured tears or unapologetic frown usually resulted naturally from anger about lacking real human sadness, not from the event itself, whatever it may be. But I of course would miss Cait if she truly did not return. I could sense somewhere, if that realization was to occur, that another genuine emotional event could possibly take place. As much as my cognition persisted with positivity, saying, "Don't worry, she's unpredictable. She'll be back! She's Cait. She loves you. She's your best friend," my apartment living room brazenly disagreed. The walls seemed so sad lacking her presence, and just like my grandmother's house, my place reeked of genuine mourning, not merely of temporary absence. I looked at the couch, with it's face like button eyes, and flat stern mouth of detachable cushions, and it looked back at me sadly. "I know," I thought, "I know, couch. I miss her too."

I didn't air any personal inadequacies in front of Wheeler however, in fear that he would persist in a long philosophical tangent about dualism, or worse, that he'd hug me. I turned on lights, I splashed cold water on my face, I opened a future contribution to empty corner and drank small pulls. The cheap vodka brand, which commonly elicits a gag, was sharp and hot and panged my already burning throat. It burned the inside of my nose. It widened my eyes.

"Aren't you done yet?" asked Wheeler.
"No, because I still know what's going on."
He grabbed the bottle and took a medium size pull.

I Do This I Do That- Chapter 16

XVI. A Gaping Hole


Every Monday morning is like a brand new year. On this day, the morning after Whim day, I woke up to a clean slate, the promise of sun rays, and the vile chirps of pigeons scouting for food on the rooftop.

I'd slept on the roof accidentally.

After the cab ride back, I opened the door to my descending stairway and the hall light was burnt out, perhaps from the day storm. After an impulsive shutter of fear, from predators, rapists, whatever, I climbed up the fire escape and maneuvered myself onto the bright roof. It was a move to merely pass the dark time.


That night, nothing was brilliant or beautiful about the view, except for the interesting chaos of the streets and the myriad of ethnicity spanning down the smokey block. I could see the varieties of cuisines, the differing markets per street. The sky was like a grey dome, sweeping over the urban span and binding these intricate particulars into tiny compartments of the same city world.

Everything that remained awake crawled passed me, and I sat still, with the intention of going inside when my dress dried. I soon fell asleep, despite the cool air and the stiff roof, which held no semblance of a bed.


Now the pigeons shuffled around like desperate hunters, sickly purring and spastically teetering between the various telephone lines. One landed on my chest, "vooo, vooo!" It's claws were prickly through my cotton dress. I sat up startled. I had pigeon poop on my leg, adjacent from the van accident gauge. It was a blemish on an otherwise clean promise of Monday. I shooed the flying rat away.

I'd had another vivid dream, and the premonitory nature of the thing lingered on my mind. I dreamt I was back in the unbeautifed neighborhood, presumably to attend another Catholic mass. The church was dark and empty. A woman in fantastically bright clothing sat in the front pew. There was one trickle of light coming in from the north side of the church, and it hit her directly on her hair. It was luminous, and I was quite arrested as I approached the lit woman.

It was Cait. But not the uninhibited, diaper-wearing friend I knew, but a domesticated version of Cait, with pinned and combed hair and freshly done makeup. Her legs were crossed daintily, her hands sat delicately in her lap. Her demeanor indicated a lifetime of accumulated grace. She was radiating, not just externally but with tangible joy from the inside out. It was the type of palpable joy I'd imagined would capitulate from birth right, from good genes and money. Boat people probably had it. It reminded me of the priest's sermon about following God's plan to obtain happiness.

She was a delicate version of herself. It was impossible. In my dream I kept reminding myself how impossible it was. The real Cait was probably waking up naked somewhere; drunk, or in her own urine, still at the beach or hankering from dehydration in empty corner.


The smell of tacos shuffled through the warm wind. I could hear Javier and his co-working family members opening and closing the back gate, and the smells of grease and tortilla shells elevated towards me from their revolving door. It made me remember that I hadn't eaten in several hours, and my stomach thundered at the thought. I carefully lowered myself down the brick wall to the fire escape stair. The wrought iron rattled while I climbed down. Javier was in the ally, tinkering under the hood of his car.



"Hola vesina..." He said it like I'd done something wrong and he was aware of it.

"Hola vesino." I was short with him, and shuffled fast towards the apartment.

The front door was slightly open, and I could not recall if I'd remembered to close it securely in my impetuous move towards the roof. Downstairs, the apartment door was wide open too. A light was on, which I was sure we'd remembered to turn off when we'd left for Whim Day.

"Cait? You here?" No one answered. I walked into the kitchen. A few cupboards were open, as though they'd been sifted through. Her bedroom was in shambles, but nothing was out of the ordinary about it. It was unusual for her to come home and then leave without writing a note or calling me. I had a few texts from Wheeler, but nothing from Cait. Had I left the door open, then any homeless wanderer could have possibly came in during the night, searching for food or money... We didn't have anything of value to be stolen.

One of the texts from Wheeler said, "Emergency! Where are you?" It was at 4 a.m. Another text at 4:45 said, "What's your address?"
"Curious," I thought. I responded with my address, and nothing else.

A few minutes later Wheeler texted me back and said, "be there in 10."

I couldn't imagine what the emergency could have been, but the nature of both Wheeler and Cait left the possibilities endless. I went into her room to pull some of the things we'd put away back into the living room. The posters were stacked haphazardly on the floor. I pulled them back out and set them against the living room wall. Her room was hot and dark, and the air smelled like sweet candy and sweat.

A gaping hole in her bookcase caught my attention. All of her organized Martha dvds were gone. Every last one of them. Only an outline of dust remained on the shelf. Perhaps other things were missing too, but it was impossible to tell in the chaos of her belongings. I couldn't imagine why she, or anyone else would take the collection out of the apartment. Who else would want them? I continued to search around for clues. A box of crackers were missing from the kitchen cupboard, and some crumbs were scattered on the counter and floor. Nothing else was missing, as far as I knew.

After a half hour passed, Wheeler knocked angrily on the front door.

"Paigebrook, you there? Let me in!"

I opened the door and he brushed passed me inside. He looked like he hadn't slept, and he paced through the apartment nervously, almost panting. His eyes were wide and red, and he was slightly shaking. He was wearing the same dress pants and shirt, which were both now wrinkled and dirty looking.

"Where is she? Is she here?" He riffled around through every part of our place; looking under her bed, behind the shower curtain, and in every closet in every room.

"Slow down Wheeler! What is going on? She's not here," I said.

"Fuck!" He screamed and hit his fist against the wall. "I lost her. I lost her in the water last night," He said.

"What do you mean, you lost her."

"We were on the sandbar, talking about Wiley and the accident. We floated on our backs for awhile. She started talking about professional swimmers. She was imitating all the different strokes; the breaststroke and the backstroke, the butterfly, even the fucking doggy paddle. She wanted to race me so we started swimming out further... She kept singing that Patsy Cline song, and I went underwater for a long breath and when I came back up I couldn't hear her singing anymore. She was just, gone. I couldn't find her! The water wasn't that deep, but the waves.. and it was dark, and I don't know, she was gone."

"Oh my God." I put my hands over my mouth and sat down, like I couldn't breath and stand up at the same time.
"She had just, disappeared. I called her name over and over and over again. I swam everywhere. I ran up and down the beach. She wasn't anywhere." He lit a cigarette and handed me one too. "Fuck!" he repeated.

"Well, we need to go look for her again!"

"I don't know what to do Paige... I'm freaking out. Should we call someone? What the fuck!" He was talking nervously, uncontrollably.

"I'm gonna get dressed, and we're going back to the beach. We'll look again, maybe she swam to shore and passed out."

"Should we call the police?"

"I don't even know her real last name.."

"Why the fuck not? You live with her!"

"We lease in my name.. I don't know. She'd gotten into trouble, she changed her name. I don't know the whole story. It never mattered to me!"

"Great. You just move in with someone, and you don't even know the girl's real name?"

It was ironic to me, because he didn't know my real name either, and he'd likely had sex with Cait in the water and he barely knew a thing about her. Living with her was arguably less intimate.

"I'm getting changed, and we're going to look for her." I finished my cigarette and changed into jeans. We turned off the light and walked upstairs.

"I won't lock the door, just in case she comes back." I said.

"Good idea," said Wheeler.

"You know it's funny, because when I came back to the apartment this morning, the light was on, and her Martha Stewart dvds were gone. It's the only thing she cares about."

"Well that's a sick thing to do, if she did this. I've been out of my god damn mind thinking she drowned or passed out in the water!" he lit another cigarette. This one was a black and mild.

"Let's just go look for her."

We hailed a cab back towards the beach. Traffic was thick and the uncovered sun made liquidy mirages on the forward pavement.

"I keep hearing her voice singing that damn song," said Wheeler.